


Their Own Business

by Evandar



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: First Kiss, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-17
Updated: 2014-07-17
Packaged: 2018-02-09 08:00:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1975113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evandar/pseuds/Evandar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Regardless of rumours and nicknames, what happens between them is their own business and no one else's.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Their Own Business

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lavode](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lavode/gifts).



> I don't usually write Game of Thrones, but I love this pairing so I had to have a go at it. I really hope you like it.

“You’ve never objected to it,” Sam says.

It’s not a helpful statement. There’s plenty that Jon doesn’t object to. He’s learned the hard way to keep his mouth shut about most things he doesn’t like, and he’s learned to fight his hardest to change what he can. But one thing about being up here on the Wall is that he’s learned that he can’t change everything. Not here; not anywhere. He has a privilege the others don’t, what with being raised in Winterfell, but in the end that means little except he can read and write and fight better than most.

He’s still a Crow, still a bastard, and still completely in the dark about whatever Sam’s talking about.

He glances over at his companion. If he’s been privileged, then Sam has too. For all his father hates him to the point of wishing him dead – and Jon’s got no illusions that Lady Catelyn hasn’t done the same regarding him once or twice – he’s still better off than some of the others. His blacks are high quality, at least, lined with thick sable fur, and they keep him so warm that he always seems to have a flush in his cheeks.

He certainly does now, standing on the Wall and looking out over the edge of the world to the endless snows beyond. Jon sighs. He’s going to have to ask.

“I never objected to what?” 

In the torchlight, he sees Sam’s cheeks darken further. “Never mind,” he says. “It doesn’t matter.”

It does, or he wouldn’t have brought it up at all, but Sam’s been taught that what he says and what he thinks don’t matter. For that, Jon’s pretty sure he hates Sam’s father.

“It does,” he says. “Go on. What didn’t I object to?”

For a moment, all he can hear is their breathing and the cracking of the Wall as its weeping sides start to freeze over as the temperature keeps dropping. Then Sam clears his throat. “Lady Snow,” he says.

Jon blinks. “Oh,” he says. “Right.”

Lord and Lady Snow. That’s what the others have called them since the first day; since Jon stood up for Sam in the ring and earned himself Sam’s loyalty in exchange for Ser Alliser’s hatred – a battle he chose to fight and win, and he’s glad that he did. He’s never really thought about the nicknames. Lord Snow rankles because it’s what he’ll never be, but he’s grown used to it. Grenn and Pyp, at least, don’t use it with any malice in mind, and for those who do…it’s a battle he’s chosen not to fight. 

But now that Sam’s brought it up, well. He can see why it’s upsetting. If it’s upsetting. He can feel his own cheeks heating, flushing enough to rival Sam’s, and he fixes his gaze on the forest, trying to spot the godswood in the dark.

“Doesn’t it bother you?” Sam asks. “That they think –“

“Not really,” he replies before Sam can finish that sentence. He doesn’t want to think about if the others _really_ think that. “Besides, they probably don’t –“

And if they did, if it were even _true_ , would it really be so bad? The Wall is beyond the reach of the King, and beyond the Septons too, and there are enough rumours floating around the barracks that no one really takes any stories like that seriously. And Sam is, well, Sam is Sam. Sam is comfortable, smart and kind; he’s a self-professed coward, but he’s got a better heart than anyone Jon’s ever met.

“It doesn’t bother me at all,” he says into the silence.

“Oh,” Sam says after a moment. Then, “why not?”

This is, Jon realises, another of the privileges attached to being able to call Ned Stark father. His father was a good man – a truly good one, who could see beyond preaching and had taught his children to do the same. “I just think that if it were true, then it wouldn’t be a bad thing,” he says. “And if it were or not, it still wouldn’t be anyone’s business but ours.”

Least of all the business of Lord Tarly, of whom Sam is still afraid; not the business of Ser Alliser either, for all that he’d try and claim it.

As Sam’s silence stretches on, Jon realises that he’s gearing himself up for another fight. A fight that would be worth every effort if he was ever given the chance to fight it. But Sam’s quiet is lasting a bit too long for that, so he forces his determination back; lets it nestle itself into his heart, bright as an ember, and promises himself that he’ll say nothing else. He doesn’t want to upset Sam any more than he might have done already.

“So are you -?” Sam says, voice uncertain. It’s not, Jon recalls, the first time they’ve had this conversation. The first time, they’d both been adamant that they _weren’t_ , bit now that he knows Sam, better, he thinks he might be able to give him a different answer.

“Maybe,” he says. “I mean, I like girls as well, but –“

A glance at Sam from the corner of his eye shows him that he’s _not_ staring out across the forest like he’d thought; he’s staring at Jon and, from the light reflecting off the snow, Jon can see how bright his eyes are. Despite all of his earlier resolve, that ember in his heart sparks and starts to burn again.

There’s no one up here on the Wall to see them, and no one can see them from the castle below, so he takes the chance to look away from his watch and press a kiss to Sam’s mouth. His nose is cold when it brushes Jon’s cheek, and his lips are chapped and dry, but he’s warmer than anything under those black furs and if – when the kiss ends – Jon stands a little closer than before with Sam’s arms around his waist so that Sam’s heat soaks through their cloaks and into his body, then it’s no one’s business but their own.


End file.
